A baseline study to document current farmers’ practices in relation to the use of synthetic pesticides in vegetable and spices production was conducted in Muheza district Eastern Usambara Mountains and Kilolo district in the Udzungwa Mountains, both located in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. The study combined assessment of vegetable growers’ knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) in selected villages and sampling and analysis of pesticide residues. Tomato production among other vegetables is the most popular enterprise grown all year round and therefore was selected as the model crop for this study. The crop is routinely sprayed using a wide range of broad spectrum pesticides from nursery up to the last harvest. In contrast, farmers in Muheza produce an array of spices but these are not sprayed with any synthetic pesticide. Analysis of clean sample extracts on a GC/ECD and confirmed on the GC/MS revealed dominance of organochlorine pesticides. Endosulfan was the only pesticide mentioned by the Kilolo vegetable growers that was detected. In general, sediment samples were found to have higher levels of pesticide residues than the other sample matrices. The implications of the findings to biodiversity conservation in the Eastern Arc Mountain hotspot are discussed.Mkwawa University College of Education and The Eastern Arc Mountains Conservation Endowment Fund and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).